Slate: Kerry vs. Kerry – He's schizoid about Medicare [View All]

[pruner]

By Timothy Noah
Posted Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2003, at 4:55 PM PT

Does Sen. John Kerry, D.-Mass., want to restrict the growth of Medicare or not? It depends on which Kerry you ask: Thrifty Kerry or Demagogic Kerry.

Thrifty Kerry boasts on his Web site that he "has the courage to take on special interests to get health care costs under control." In the Nov. 24 presidential debate in Iowa, Kerry called the just-passed Medicare prescription-drug bill a "special interest giveaway" containing "$139 billion worth of slush fund money that's going to go directly to the drug companies." Kerry criticized the Medicare bill for, among other things, not allowing the federal government "to actually negotiate bulk purchases for states, which would lower prices." (He's quite right on this point, which we'll get back to in a moment.)

Demagogic Kerry seems blissfully unaware of Thrifty Kerry's existence. In the Nov. 24 debate, he mocked Howard Dean for calling himself a "balanced budget freak" and repeated a challenge he's made before:

Will he still try to reduce the rate of growth in Medicare? He's said several times he's going to cut the rate of growth in Medicare. … I'd like to know if he still intends to reduce the rate of growth in Medicare as one of the ways in which he's going to balance the budget.

Dean tried to duck the question, but Demagogic Kerry wouldn't let him. Chatterbox's Slate colleagues Mickey Kaus and Will Saletan have already noted the bizarre exchange that followed, in which Demagogic Kerry harassed Dean for refusing to make a fiscally irresponsible pledge that Medicare would continue its present growth rate forever. But to properly appreciate how fervently Demagogic Kerry turned not only on Dean but on Thrifty ("get health care costs under control") Kerry, you need to read the whole thing:

http://slate.msn.com//?id=2091684&